Noah stood in my doorway like the loft might bite him. He held a duffel bag older than he was, one strap frayed to a rag, wearing the expression of a boy who had decided nothing here would surprise him.
"Okay," I said. "Welcome home."
"Temporary," he said. Not unkind. Bookkeeping. "Ninety days."
I had rehearsed a speech in the car. It evaporated. "Fair. Come in."
He stepped inside and stopped, scanning the concrete floors, the tall windows, the couch a magazine had called interesting. "It's really empty."
"It's minimalist."
"It's empty."
Thomas followed with a smaller bag, wearing the look of a man who had seen this before. "Guest room," he said. "I'll take these back."
"No," Noah said. "I want the couch."
"The guest room has a bed," I said.
"Couches don't have locks," Noah said.
The room went quiet. Thomas's gaze flicked to mine, like a hand on a shoulder.
"We can do the couch tonight," I said. "If you hate it, we renegotiate. Deal?"
Noah considered this like opposing counsel. "Deal." He dropped the duffel by the couch like a planted flag.
"House rules," I said. "I have a list."
"Of course you do."
"One: nobody hits anybody here, ever. Two: if something's wrong, you tell me, even if it sounds stupid. Three: the smoke alarm is not a dinner bell."
Thomas made a sound almost like a laugh. Noah squinted at me. "You burned something already?"
"I burned nothing today. Yet."
"My terms," Noah said. "No locked doors between me and the exit. I check the locks myself. Hall light stays on if I want it."
"Agreed. All of it."
He blinked. He had expected a fight. "Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"You're weird," he said, almost fondly, and something in my chest loosened one full turn.
Then his stomach growled, loud enough for Thomas to hear across the room, and Noah's ears went pink.
"Dinner," I announced. "I am making pasta."
Thomas paused. "Eleanor. Would you like me to stay for dinner?"
"I've got this."
"Eleanor."
"Thomas. I negotiate nine-figure settlements before lunch. I can boil water."
Twenty minutes later the smoke alarm proved otherwise.
I stood in my kitchen waving a dish towel at the ceiling while smoke curled toward the windows, and the pot held what could only be called pasta in the past tense. Noah watched from the doorway like a patient judge.
"You have to stir it," he said.
"I stirred it."
"When? During the Clinton administration?"
"I was on the phone for one minute."
"Four minutes. I counted."
Thomas appeared with a grocery bag, because Thomas is a magician. "I took the liberty," he said, setting down bread, butter, and a rotisserie chicken. "While the defendant regroups."
We ate at the island. The chicken was warm and salty, and Noah ate fast and watchful, like a boy who had learned not to trust food to stay. I looked away.
"You should marry him. Then he'd cook every night."
"I am married," Thomas said mildly. "Forty-one years."
"Damn."
"Noah."
"Darn."
After dinner Thomas fetched a long garment bag from the car. "Winter coat," he said. "For the boy."
He unzipped it: navy wool, beautiful, at least three sizes too big.
Noah stared. "I look like a mailbox."
"You'll grow into it," Thomas said. "The entire philosophy of childhood outerwear."
Noah slipped his arms in. The sleeves swallowed his hands. He flapped them at me. "I'm a wizard now."
"You are the worst wizard."
"Take it back."